On the December 3 broadcast of ABC's World News, national correspondent Chris Bury falsely claimed that "Ford, Chrysler, and GM pay union workers more than $73 an hour in wages and benefits." In fact, according to General Motors, which reportedly puts its current hourly labor costs at around $69, the figure is based not only on current workers' hourly wages and benefits, such as health care and retirement, but also retirement and health-care benefits that U.S. automakers are providing for current retirees, as Media Matters for America has noted.

Bury described the alleged $73 an hour pay rate as "the big stuff" that the United Auto Workers "did not offer to give back" as a concession to keep GM, Chrysler, and Ford from falling into bankruptcy. But the Associated Press reported that GM "says its total hourly labor costs dropped 6 percent this year from pre-contract levels, from $73.26 in 2006 to around $69 per hour," and according to a GM spokesman, "The new cost includes laborers' wages of $29.78 per hour, plus benefits, pensions and the cost of providing health care to more than 432,000 GM retirees."

Bury joins numerous other media figures who have advanced the falsehood that U.S. autoworkers employed by General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler earn $70 or more per hour in wages and benefits.

From the December 3 broadcast of ABC's World News with Charles Gibson:

BURY: But the union did not offer to give back the big stuff: pay and benefits that remain a fundamental problem. Ford, Chrysler, and GM pay union workers more than $73 an hour in wages and benefits. Japanese plants here shell out just over $44. For GM, that translates into $1,500 more per car than Toyota has to pay.

DAVID COLE (chairman, Center for Automotive Research): That's like trying to run a marathon, and your competition is wearing track shoes and a great track outfit, and you're wearing galoshes and an overcoat and carrying a bowling ball.

BURY: That competitive gap will shrink dramatically when big cuts in pay and benefits kick in over the next few years, but that's too late. Today the union chief bristled at blaming autoworkers.

RON GETTELFINGER (president, United Auto Workers): Are we going to take a look at what's happened to our economy, to the housing crunch, to the Wall Street bailout, and the failures on Wall Street? Those are the things that we need to look at.

BURY: The concessions may not be enough to stem the bleeding, but they may help convince Congress that Detroit is serious about changing its ways, and today, President-elect Obama suggested he is warming to the bailout plan.

BRUXELLES - Un accord sur le plan européen pour le climat semble à portée de main, une semaine avant le sommet de l'UE, mais des compromis ...

pFiled under: a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/timewarp/" rel="tag"Time Warp/a, a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/hatchbacks/" rel="tag"Hatchbacks/a, a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/rendered-speculation/" rel="tag"Rendered Speculation/a/pa href="http://www.autoblog.com/photos/amc-gremlin-by-jeff-teague/1201580/"img vspace="4" hspace="4" border="1" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/12/45_amcgremlinremake_opt.jpg" alt="" //abr / div align="center"emstrongsmallClick above for high-res image gallery of Jeff Teague's AMC Gremlin/small/strong/embr //div br /Jeff Teague is the son of former AMC design chief Dick Teague, and his father's work at the scrappy independent automaker created some of the most memorable designs ever. Jeff Teague is a designer himself, and not too long ago his a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/11/13/rendered-speculation-the-return-of-the-amx/"reimagining of the AMX/a musclecar caught our eye. That exercise left Teague so inspired that he fleshed out what a modern-day Gremlin might look like. Being fond of the original helps us like this new take on the car, even if it's pretty far removed looks-wise. We like that it's not blatantly retro; the only real concession to the past is the C-Pillar shape, and hey, the Infiniti FX already swiped that. The proportions and overall look bring to mind several current vehicles from other manufacturers, making us think that the Gremlin was about 35 years ahead of its time. br /br /div class="postgallery"pstrongGallery: a href="%GalleryURL%"AMC Gremlin by Jeff Teague/a/strong/pa href="/gallery/amc-gremlin-by-jeff-teague/1201580/"img src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/12/44_amcgremlinremake_thumbnail.jpg" alt="" title="" //aa href="/gallery/amc-gremlin-by-jeff-teague/1201581/"img src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/12/45_amcgremlinremake_thumbnail.jpg" alt="" title="" //aa href="/gallery/amc-gremlin-by-jeff-teague/1201585/"img src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/12/46_amcgremlinremake_thumbnail.jpg" alt="" title="" //aa href="/gallery/amc-gremlin-by-jeff-teague/1201582/"img src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/12/47_amcgremlinremake_thumbnail.jpg" alt="" title="" //aa href="/gallery/amc-gremlin-by-jeff-teague/1201579/"img src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/12/48_amcgremlinremake_thumbnail.jpg" alt="" title="" //a/divbr /[Source: a href="http://www.socalamc.com/forum/index.php?topic=343.0"socalamc.com/a via a href="http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2008/12/03/teague-designs-gremlin-but-not-that-teague-and-not-that-gremlin/"Hemmings/a]p style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/12/04/dont-let-it-eat-after-midnight-amc-gremlin-reimagined/"Don't let it eat after midnight - AMC Gremlin reimagined/a originally appeared on a href="http://www.autoblog.com"Autoblog/a on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 11:30:00 EST. Please see our a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/"terms for use of feeds/a./ph6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"/h6a href=http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2008/12/03/teague-designs-gremlin-but-not-that-teague-and-not-that-gremlin/Read/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/12/04/dont-let-it-eat-after-midnight-amc-gremlin-reimagined/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry"Permalink/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.autoblog.com/forward/1390757/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email"Email this/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/12/04/dont-let-it-eat-after-midnight-amc-gremlin-reimagined/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry"Comments/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/QjgZNOA4mXyIRVIrP_PRolXqQCI/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/QjgZNOA4mXyIRVIrP_PRolXqQCI/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?a=47a2aGgP"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?i=47a2aGgP" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?a=nhlAOKth"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?i=nhlAOKth" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/weblogsinc/autoblog/~4/2ekA3mAL1CI" height="1" width="1"/

(Russie) La décision de l'OTAN de relancer le dialogue avec la Russie et de refuser le MAP à l'Ukraine et la Géorgie signifie que l'Alliance est prête à des concessions considérables vis-à-vis de Moscou, estime le président du Comité pour les Affaires

Karine Gavand, responsable de la campagne climat chez Greenpeace, a estimé lors d#39;un quot;chatquot; sur Le Monde.fr que la présidence française de l#39;UE a fait trop de concessions aux pays et industries les plus pollueurs.img width='1' height='1' src='http://rss.feedsportal.com/c/205/f/3059/s/27f9691/mf.gif' border='0'/br/br/a href="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/25853576671/u/6/f/3059/c/205/s/41916049/a2.htm"img src="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/25853576671/u/6/f/3059/c/205/s/41916049/a2.img" border="0"//a

Karine Gavand, responsable de la campagne climat chez Greenpeace, a estimé lors d'un "chat" sur Le Monde.fr que la présidence française de l'UE a fait trop de concessions aux pays et industries les plus pollueurs.img width='1' height='1' src='http://rss.feedsportal.com/c/205/f/3050/s/27f8c80/mf.gif' border='0'/br/br/a href="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/25853575992/u/159/f/3050/c/205/s/41913472/a2.htm"img src="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/25853575992/u/159/f/3050/c/205/s/41913472/a2.img" border="0"//a

Karine Gavand, responsable de la campagne climat chez Greenpeace, a estimé lors d'un quot;chatquot; sur Le Monde.fr que la présidence française de l'UE a fait trop de concessions aux pays et industries les plus pollueurs.img width='1' height='1' src='http://rss.feedsportal.com/c/205/f/3050/s/27f96a1/mf.gif' border='0'/br/br/a href="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/25853576675/u/6/f/3050/c/205/s/41916065/a2.htm"img src="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/25853576675/u/6/f/3050/c/205/s/41916065/a2.img" border="0"//a

Karine Gavand, responsable de la campagne climat chez Greenpeace, a estimé lors d'un quot;chatquot; sur Le Monde.fr que la présidence française de l'UE a fait trop de concessions aux pays et industries les plus pollueurs.img width='1' height='1' src='http://rss.feedsportal.com/c/205/f/3050/s/27f96a1/mf.gif' border='0'/br/br/a href="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/25853576675/u/3/f/3050/c/205/s/41916065/a2.htm"img src="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/25853576675/u/3/f/3050/c/205/s/41916065/a2.img" border="0"//a

BRUXELLES - Un accord sur le plan européen pour le climat semble à portée de main, une semaine avant le sommet de l'UE, mais la question ...

Coire (AWP/ats) - Roger Schawinski a décidé de faire recours auprès du Tribunal fédéral contre le refus de la Confédération de lui octroyer une ...

div style="FLOAT: right"img title="Annonce du Huawei U121" alt="Annonce du Huawei U121" hspace="5" src="http://www.ubergizmo.com/photos/2008/12/huawei-u121.jpg" vspace="5" border="0" //div pHuawei Technologies vient de sortir sa troisième génération de téléphone Huawei U121 pour les personnes qui recherchent un téléphone entrée de gamme sans faire de concession sur le design. Fabriqué avec des matériaux haute qualité incluant l'acier inoxydable, les caractéristiques du Huawei U121 comprennent :- p ul liAPN 1.3 mégapixels/li liSupport pour les appels vidéo/li liRadio FM intégrée/li liSlot pour carte mémoire microSD/li liPrise casque 3.5mm/li liLecture audio et vidéo/li liport miniUSB/li li3G/li/ul p/pOn ne sait pas encore s'il ne sera disponible qu'en Russie ou aussi dans d'autres pays. p/p pPermalink: a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/fr/archives/2008/12/annonce_du_huawei_u121.php"Annonce du Huawei U121/a d'a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/fr"Ubergizmo FR/a. Aussi a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com"en Anglais/a/p pmap name="google_ad_map_081204005616" area shape="rect" href="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/imgclick/081204005616?pos=0" coords="1,2,367,28"/ area shape="rect" href="http://services.google.com/feedback/abg" coords="384,10,453,23"//map img usemap="#google_ad_map_081204005616" border="0" src="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/ads?format=468x30_aff_imgamp;client=ca-pub-7335032025195922amp;channel=5336763717amp;output=pngamp;cuid=081204005616amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ubergizmo.com%2Ffr%2Farchives%2F2008%2F12%2Fannonce_du_huawei_u121.php"//p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/dU0xpqySAbknKlD4TLPnrotmbyQ/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/dU0xpqySAbknKlD4TLPnrotmbyQ/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ubergizmo_fr/~4/QLND0m7f8zM" height="1" width="1"/

Bill Vlasic / New York Times:
U.A.W. Makes Concessions in Bid to Help Automakers  —  WASHINGTON — The United Automobile Workers union said Wednesday that it would make major concessions in its contracts with the three Detroit auto companies to help them lobby Congress for $34 billion in federal aid.

pa onclick=window.open(this.href, '_blank', 'width=567,height=295,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0'); return false href=http://clabedan.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2008/12/03/kawa1.jpgimg width=470 height=244 border=0 src=http://www.leblogmoto.com/images/2008/12/03/kawa1.jpg title=Kawa1 alt=Kawa1 //a /p pKawasaki nous arrive en 2009 avec une version remodelée de sa a href=http://www.kawasaki.fr/ER-6nER-6n/a, et c’est le sabre plutôt que le bistouri qui semble avoir été utilisé, tellement elle se fait anguleuse.br /Qui s’y frotte s’y pique alors? Pas vraiment, car elle demeure vertueuse et douce, elle se donne uniquement des airs de ne pas en avoir l’air./p pLe bicylindre en ligne de 649 cm3 à refroidissement liquide n’a que peu changé, sinon le peaufinage de l’injection et des réglages pour plus de souplesse et une meilleure courbe de puissance à bas et mi-régime. Ce qui semble être le nouveau mantra chez tous les manufacturiers dans ce segment, surtout ne pas effrayer la nouvelle clientèle avec une machine nerveuse. De toute façon, un roadster n’a pas à être nerveux, et les Ninjas ZX s’y spécialisent, alors à chacun ses forces./p pOutre la nouvelle coiffure, le ER-6n s’est fait corriger quelques petits défauts, comme la vibration du bicylindre qui se voit maintenant atténuée par des liaisons souples (silent blocks), le guidon reçoit le même traitement, et même les repose-pieds se voient offrir une bonne grosse semelle de caoutchouc. On ne pourra plus mettre sur le dos de la Kawasaki nos a href=http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubles_musculosquelettiquesTMS/a (troubles musculosquelettiques).br /Le cadre en étoile a été revu, comme le bras oscillant et la barre stabilisatrice, rendant le tout plus homogène. Même les soudures sont plus soignées, et un robot à la casse!/p pa onclick=window.open(this.href, '_blank', 'width=640,height=164,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0'); return false href=http://clabedan.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2008/12/03/kawa2.jpgimg width=470 height=120 border=0 src=http://www.leblogmoto.com/images/2008/12/03/kawa2.jpg title=Kawa2 alt=Kawa2 //a /p pLes poignées de maintien passager laissent tomber le plastique pour l’alu., et le feu arrière est à diode. L’instrumentation donne dans la double personnalité, analogique pour le compteur de vitesse (voir grimper l’aiguille garde toujours son charme) et numérique pour le reste dont une montre et la jauge à essence./p pÀ près de 200 kilos, elle n’est pas poids plume, mais avec le silencieux sous le moteur, abaissant le centre de gravité, la maniabilité s'en tire mieux. La hauteur de selle est dans la norme des 600 cm3 avec ses 785 mm, et c’est pourquoi j’ai l’impression de me répéter après avoir parlé de la a href=http://www.leblogmoto.com/2008/12/suzuki-gladius.htmlSuzuki Gladius/a et de la a href=http://www.leblogmoto.com/2008/12/yamaha-xj6-dive.htmlYamaha XJ6 Diversion/a, tellement leurs caractéristiques sont similaires./p pParce qu’avec des prix très proches, le choix devient plus une question de fidélité à une marque, un coup de cÅ“ur pour un style en particulier ou des atomes crochus avec une concession. Et c’est cette dernière donnée de l’équation que l’on néglige le plus souvent, mais une fois le contrat signé, c’est dans une relation que l’on s’engage, pas seulement avec une moto, mais avec tout ce qui la soutient. Parce que le plaisir qu’on en retire ne tient pas uniquement à la machine, et si ce maillon ne tient pas.../p pa onclick=window.open(this.href, '_blank', 'width=640,height=338,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0'); return false href=http://clabedan.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2008/12/03/kawa3.jpgimg width=470 height=248 border=0 src=http://www.leblogmoto.com/images/2008/12/03/kawa3.jpg title=Kawa3 alt=Kawa3 //a /p pa onclick=window.open(this.href, '_blank', 'width=640,height=339,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0'); return false href=http://clabedan.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2008/12/03/kawa4.jpgimg width=470 height=248 border=0 src=http://www.leblogmoto.com/images/2008/12/03/kawa4.jpg title=Kawa4 alt=Kawa4 //a /p pa onclick=window.open(this.href, '_blank', 'width=569,height=299,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0'); return false href=http://clabedan.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2008/12/03/kawa5.jpgimg width=470 height=246 border=0 src=http://www.leblogmoto.com/images/2008/12/03/kawa5.jpg title=Kawa5 alt=Kawa5 //a /p pobject width=425 height=349param value=http://www.youtube.com/v/z6b8CE_-bW8amp;hl=framp;fs=1amp;rel=0amp;border=1amp;ap=%2526fmt%3D18 name=movie /param value=true name=allowFullScreen /param value=always name=allowscriptaccess /embed width=425 height=349 allowfullscreen=true allowscriptaccess=always type=application/x-shockwave-flash src=http://www.youtube.com/v/z6b8CE_-bW8amp;hl=framp;fs=1amp;rel=0amp;border=1amp;ap=%2526fmt%3D18/embed/object/p

Il n'arrivera qu'en février en concessions, mais Citroën dévoile déjà les tarifs de son petit monospace : le C3 Picasso, qui avait beaucoup plu au Mondial de Paris, en septembre dernier. Il s'affichera à partir de 14 950 euros en finition Attract...

div class="rxbodyfield"p page="1" class="ArticleBody"IT vendors may be growing increasingly desperate amid the global economic downturn, but customers must employ a range of tactics -- not just bullying -- to extract cost savings from them, a group of Forrester Research analysts said during a client teleconference Wednesday./pp align="right"a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/idg.us.info.rss/news;pos=imu;tile=6;sz=336x280;skey=patch_management;pkey=security;ord=123456789?" target="_blank" /img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/idg.us.info.rss/news;pos=imu;tile=6;sz=336x280;skey=patch_management;pkey=security;ord=123456789?" width="336" height="280" border="0" alt="" align="right"//a/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Companies simply can#39;t use a shotgun-style approach and expect to succeed, said software licensing analyst Duncan Jones: quot;Anything that is undifferentiated, like a general letter that goes out [to vendors] saying we#39;ve got to cut everyone#39;s maintenance by 10 percent? That#39;s not going anywhere.quot;/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"b[#160;For more on how to deal with the recession, check out#160;a href="http://www.infoworld.com/archives/t.jsp?N=samp;V=113008amp;source=fssr"InfoWorld#39;s special report: IT and the financial crisis/a.#160;]/b/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Analyst Paul Roehrig, who focuses on outsourcing and IT services, said it is difficult and awkward to extract price concessions on a signed contract./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"quot;Either you#39;re begging or threatening.... Those [tactics] tend to work, but only for a short time,quot; he said, adding, quot;unless you#39;re really overpaying, there#39;s really not that much room in the provider#39;s margin where they can lower the price point without changing the service level.quot;/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"And if a customer does succeed in lowering its services costs, quot;the vendor is going to immediately substitute junior people,quot; said analyst John McCarthy, whose coverage areas include offshoring./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Instead of begging for a rate cut, customers could instead ask their vendors to assign more seasoned workers to their projects, resulting in productivity gains and cost savings, McCarthy said./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Meanwhile, the tactics are different for software licenses and maintenance agreements, according to Jones./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"quot;One of the problems is, you#39;re dealing with a software rep who has different goals than you. He needs to sell new licenses and has no interest in helping you cut costs,quot; he said. quot;But if you get up higher in the organization, there are going to be people who care more about the long-term relationship, and there#39;s flexibility there.quot;/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"That said, now is the time to push for bigger discounts on new licenses, as sales representatives quot;are desperate to meet their number by end of the year,quot; Jones added./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Companies could even indicate they#39;d be happy to let any outstanding deals float over into 2009, he said: quot;That will probably be too late for the rep, so try it as a tactic and see how much flexibility you#39;ve got.quot;/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Also, customers could use money they#39;re prepared to spend on new software as leverage, Jones said: quot;Anything you#39;re trying to get, like cutting maintenance on products you#39;re not using, you might be able to get that as a quid pro quo for spending in another area.quot;/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Beyond maximizing their buying power, companies should save money by determining which software assets no longer need a maintenance contract, Jones said: quot;You save costs with minimal impact on the business, but you put pressure on other vendors because it shows you#39;re seriously looking at everything.quot;/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"A similar approach should be taken to IT services contracts, Roehrig said. quot;If you#39;re asking for the highest levels of service, you#39;re going to be paying top dollar, when the reality is that the enterprise can function just fine with not everyone having gold-plated service.quot;/pp page="2" class="ArticleBody"Companies should also try to get more value out of outsourcing in general through strategic hiring, he said. quot;If I had money as a client to invest in one thing ... I would get someone who really knows how to manage a service provider. Some of the best outsourcing deals I#39;ve come up against have really good people who know how to get a service provider to do what you want.quot;/pp page="2" class="ArticleBody"Customers should also seek to lower the total number of service providers they contract with, leading the way to bigger volume discounts, Roehrig said. But he noted that this can be difficult for heavily federated organizations to accomplish./pp page="2" class="ArticleBody"It#39;s also possible to save money by actually helping one#39;s vendor cut costs, according to Jones./pp page="2" class="ArticleBody"If four divisions within a company are negotiating separately with a vendor, they should consider consolidating those relationships, he said: quot;I would go to the vendor and say, how can I earn cost reductions by dealing with you in a centralized fashion?quot;/p/divbr style=clear: both;/ a href=http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=d2af144ea36d92b98b864852471867f8p=1img alt= style=border: 0; border=0 src=http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=d2af144ea36d92b98b864852471867f8p=1//a img src=http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=d2af144ea36d92b98b864852471867f8 style=display: none; border=0 height=1 width=1 alt=/

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi raises hopes that the US government will bail-out the troubled Detroit Three carmakers.

texte corrigé au dernier paragraphe, bien lire "Basel One" et non "One")Aarau/Bâle (AWP/ats) - L'octroi des concessions aux radios locales continue de ...

Aarau/Bâle (AWP/ats) - L'octroi des concessions aux radios locales continue de soulever des oppositions. Les responsables des projets "Radio AG" ...

Propositions.Pour des questions de concurrence, l'acquisition de British Energy s'annonce un peu plus compliquée que ce que les dirigeants d'EDF avaient espéré. La Commission européenne a prolongé hier jusqu'au 22 décembre son examen du dossier. Un délai

On the December 2 edition of Fox News' The Live Desk, co-host Trace Gallagher repeated the falsehood that the average union autoworker earns $73 an hour in wages and benefits. Gallagher asked Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI): "[I]s it tough to justify to your constituents when you have the hourly compensation and wage of the Big Three at around $73 and you have the hourly compensation and wage for the average American at $28? I mean, it's a big disparity to ask those making 28 bucks in wages and benefits to pay for those who are making 73 bucks in wages and benefits." In fact, according to General Motors, the $73-an-hour figure is based not only on current workers' hourly wages and benefits, such as health care and retirement, but also retirement and health-care benefits that U.S. automakers are providing for retirees, as Media Matters for America has noted.

Numerous media figures have advanced the falsehood that autoworkers earn $70 or more per hour in wages and benefits, some using it to blame autoworkers for the domestic auto industry's financial straits.

From the December 2 edition of Fox News' The Live Desk with Martha and Trace:

GALLAGHER: Is there a plan B if the Big Three don't get this bailout?

UPTON: Well, not really. In fact, GM, they'll probably say, at the end of the week, if they don't get some type of bridge loan commitment, certainly this month, now that we're in December, we're not sure that they can actually make it into -- very much into next year at all. So, there's really no -- no one's talking about a plan B right now. What we're trying to do is -- Ford now is -- at least they've shared with us a summary of a plan that's going to be going to all the members on the banking committee -- House Finance Committee over here in the House. We'll see what the reaction is among both Republicans and Democrats.

Hearings are going to be later on this week, and you know, hopefully, they're going to be showing that, in fact, there is going to be some belt-tightening and a number of different changes that will justify a bridge loan to get them into the next level of vehicles that Americans want: electric hybrids, other things to decrease our dependence on foreign oil. And if we can show that they can pass the plan, hopefully -- or that the committee reaction is positive -- hopefully, we can get a bill on the House floor -- House and Senate floor, as early as next week.

GALLAGHER: Congressman, when you talk about justifying this bridge loan, is it tough to justify to your constituents when you have the hourly compensation and wage of the Big Three at around $73 and you have the hourly compensation and wage for the average American at $28? I mean, it's a big disparity to ask those making 28 bucks in wages and benefits to pay for those who are making 73 bucks in wages and benefits.

UPTON: Couple of things. First of all, the last big contract that the UAW did does away with a lot of the legacy cost difference between the Big Three and some of the transplants, Honda and Toyota. Almost gets rid of it by the end of next year. Second, we're going to see, I'm sure, some more concessions. The UAW, I think, is going to be testifying later on this week as well, talk about some other price-savings things that they can do. But, you know, let's look at the facts here. We're looking for maybe $25 billion dollars as a bridge loan that gets paid back, manufacturing staying where it is --

GALLAGHER: What if it doesn't get paid back, Congressman? What if it does not get paid back?

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/43031?ns=guardianpageName=Business%3A+The+road+to+ruinch=Businessc3=The+Guardianc4=Automotive+industry+%28Business%29%2CGeneral+Motors%2CFord%2CBusiness%2CUS+economy+%28Business%29%2CUS+news%2CWorld+newsc5=Motoring%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CBusiness+Markets%2CUS+Economyc6=Ed+Pilkingtonc7=2008_12_03c8=1127737c9=articlec10=GUc11=Businessc12=Automotive+industryc13=c14=h2=GU%2FBusiness%2FAutomotive+industry" width="1" height="1" //divpThe Ford plant in Highland Park, a city within the city of Detroit, is a monument to the American automobile. It opened in 1910, and three years later pioneered the world's first car assembly line. In 1925, it spewed out 9,000 Model Ts in a single day. The revolution that turned America into a car-owning democracy had arrived. Today, there is ample evidence of that revolution. The factory looks over a six-lane highway that is heavy with traffic from dawn to dusk. Next door is a drive-thru McDonald's, where customers come to order Big Macs before rolling 50 metres to a drive-thru chemists to pick up indigestion tablets./ppThe story of the plant is told in one of those green-and-gold heritage plaques erected by the main entrance. It says: "Mass production soon moved from here to all phases of American industry and set the pattern of abundance for 20th-century living." Pattern of abundance: the phrase reads like a sick joke, for the Ford factory it describes is a shell of what it once was. Its red brick and granite walls still stand proud, framed by decorative mosaics. But the windows are broken or boarded up, its ceilings have gaping holes, the floor is covered in broken lumps of fallen plaster. On the roof, the flagpole that for years flew the Stars and Stripes is rusty and bare./ppOther companies, other countries, might have turned Henry Ford's factory of dreams into a museum rather than let it decay into the pitiful wreck that it is today. But Ford, and its fellows in the Big Three - General Motors (GM) and Chrysler - have enough to do staying alive without worrying about preserving the past. GM, the giant of the three, has lost $73bn in the past three years; it is haemorrhaging $2bn a month. At that rate it will run out of cash by the middle of next year and collapse by that year's end, potentially bringing millions of workers down with it. Which is why the CEOs of the three giants took their begging bowls to Washington earlier this month, pleading for a "bridging loan" of $25bn./ppThey didn't get a warm reception. They were ridiculed by senators for having flown in three separate corporate jets, an act that must rank among the most impressive PR disasters of the decade. But what the senators and the largely hostile media coverage missed was that the miserable condition of the Detroit car industry is not merely a comment on the failed leadership of its corporate executives, though it is that. It is also a matter of personal survival for millions of Americans who depend, directly or indirectly, on the revolution Henry Ford began 100 years ago./ppNowhere is this more visible than in Detroit, the crucible of the Big Three. Half of GM's 100,000 workers live in the city, and they in turn support a spider's web of relatives, spin-off industries and services. Detroit is really nothing but a company town. Hamtramckis a city within the city that borders one of GM's main factories. When GM enjoyed good times, Hamtramck boomed. Now GM is in the doldrums, Hamtramck is too. We walk along a stretch of shops along one of its main streets. First in line is Anna's Beauty Salon: it's closed, but the sign on the door suggests Anna is managing to stay open four days a week. Next, Popular Fashion and Variety Store: shut down. Billiards and Burger Hall: abandoned. Antiques store, an oil painting portraying an autumn landscape still in its window: deserted. Law offices: vacant. Funeral home: open. Even in a recession, one aspect of life must go on - the ending of it./ppOn the other side of the road is the Family Donut shop, a local institution run by a Polish family for the past 28 years. It has a picture of Princess Diana on the wall, a gift from one of the regular clients, and another of the Three Stooges. The owner, Vojno, is unloading a bundle of cardboard boxes used to pack the donuts. A few years ago he would order up to 30 bundles a month; now it's 10. On Polish festive days, there would be a line of customers out the door and round the corner, and the stools at the counter would be loaded. Today, the line is more of a dribble and the counter is largely empty. Unless GM recovers, and money starts flowing again, he will have to close in a few months. "It's not just me. Everybody around here is going to shut down," he says. What will he do if he does have to close? "I'll stay home and sleep. I'm hungry for sleep," he says./ppOne of the few clients, dressed in a bomber jacket with Detroit written across the back, shouts over at him. "You only work one job, so why do you need to sleep?"/pp"Shut up, Eddie," Vojno replies./pp"I work three jobs to make my money," Eddie Fabiszak says, prompting the only other customer in the bakery to say, under his breath: "Lucky man."/ppThe other customer is Melis Lejlic, 27, a naturalised American originally from Bosnia. His father and mother, two uncles and a cousin all work in the car business. All now fear redundancy. Lejlic works in construction, but that is no better. Car workers are no longer spending on home improvements, so demand for his work has fallen by half. Of 10 builders he knows, seven are unemployed. "Everybody in a small town like this is looking to the car industry, and there's no hope there," he says. "Drive around, you'll see. Detroit is worse right now than Baghdad."/ppThe comparison sounds far-fetched, but in the streets around the GM plant you can see what he means. Several houses have no glazing in their rickety wooden walls. Front lawns have turned into littered pasture. Walls are lined with barbed wire. A mural of a Stars and Stripes has been graffitied. And though it is nothing like Baghdad, there is clearly a market in lawlessness. A poster advertising the services of a lawyer says: "Aggressive criminal defence. Drugs CCW [carrying a concealed weapon] Theft Murder All felonies misdemeanours." That is how Henry Ford's dream looks in November 2008./ppGM's headquarters in downtown Detroit dominate the city's skyline. The seven cylindrical glass towers of the Renaissance Centre were built in 1977 as a statement of the company's untouchable status as the